Hanna to step down as Provincetown film society & festival director

After 10 years as executive director of the Provincetown Film Society and 13 years with the organization, Gabrielle Hanna is stepping down at the end of July.

Staff reports

After 10 years as executive director of the Provincetown Film Society and 13 years with the organization, Gabrielle Hanna is stepping down at the end of July.

Under Hanna’s leadership, the Provincetown International Film Festival, now in its 15th year, grew from a five-day regional event to a year-round internationally recognized arts organization. Hanna spearheaded a three-year capital campaign, which has to date raised almost $1 million, dedicated to the purchase and renovation of the Waters Edge Cinema. The cinema now operates year-round in two screening rooms with state-of-the-art digital equipment and a video art gallery.

“It has been a thrilling challenge growing the festival and the society,” Hanna said in a recent press release from the Film Society, “and I am deeply grateful to the incredible staff and board of PFS. I am proud of the partnerships we have built with both local and national organizations, and that the society is poised to take the next leaps into the future.

Most recently, she and a dedicated task force have laid the groundwork for the Provincetown Film Institute, expected to launch this fall, thus fulfilling Hanna’s dream of creating and sustaining film as an art form in America’s oldest art colony.

In the same release, filmmaker John Waters, an advisory board member for the film society, said, “Gabby Hanna was a fearless executive director whose humor, hard work and relentless pursuit of financing, good programming and solving the everyday problems of running a film festival will be forever appreciated. The Waters Edge Cinema should actually be named after her since it was her baby right from the beginning.”